Terrible Two's, Where's Daddy, and Pajama Parties

After having Clayton I was convinced that the 'terrible two's' were an exaggeration. I had decided that it should be labeled the 'inconvenient two's' and the 'terrible three's'. Noah, however, is working hard to help me understand just exactly why they're called the 'terrible two's'. I am now a believer and I'm absolutely terrified for what three will bring. Now, I love Noah with all my heart. Heaven knows that no one has me wrapped around their finger like that little boy does but lately we have the same fight every morning.

Noah loves his pajamas and wants to be in them all day. I can't blame him, it would be nice to stay in my jammies and lounge around all day, but unfortunately, I do not allow this. In our house, you get dressed right after breakfast. Noah hates this rule and lately has become very vocal in expressing his hatred of it and very physical in his opposition. Yes, I am larger and older, but it is HARD to win a 'getting dressed' fight with a stubborn two year old. So today, after his shirt got put on over his head and the fighting became more than I wanted to deal with, I left him as he was.

As you can see, this wasn't acceptable to him either, but since he refused to get properly dressed, he stayed like this for about an hour (until I became frustrated enough to get back into the ring and finish the fight).
On a different note - lately Clayton has become very aware of where Justin goes every day. He knows that Justin goes to the hospital and (in his words), 'makes the sick kids feel better'. Very cute. However, lately Clayton has really started identifying with Justin and he gets very sad when Justin isn't home as often as Clayton thinks he should be. Here are a few of the things I've been hearing lately:
(fake cough)"I'm sick. I need to go to the hospital so daddy can make me better."
"There must be a lot of sick kids at the hospital. How many more does daddy have to fix before he can come home?"
"Noah is sick. We have to get him some medicine. If we go to the hospital, daddy can give him some."
And my favorite:
"I got to cut off a leg today!" (Okay this was said by Justin, not Clayton, but Justin's enthusiasm when he said it made me really want to throw it in there.)
It breaks my heart. Especially when I think of the fact that we are only going to see less of him once residency starts. I know that Clayton understands that what daddy does is very important, but I don't think he understands why daddy can't just be home more.

Finally, to lighten things back up. We have been spending a lot of time lately with our favorite friend, Enoch. We had him spend the night once and it was a huge success. Now, whenever he comes over at night, Clayton gets very excited at the prospect of a 'pajama party'. You can see that he isn't the only one who loves it!

I don't know what we're going to do when we move for residency and don't live next to the Petersen's anymore. These boys (especially Noah and Enoch) are thick as thieves and it's fun to see how excited they all get to see each other.

So that's what we've been up to lately. It's still freezing here (by that I mean close to or below zero). It's supposed to get into the 30's tomorrow and when I heard that I actually got really excited at the prospect of some 'decent weather'. Because of this, we don't really do too many exciting things around here lately. Hence the random post. Although in my defense, I am pregnant and everything I do lately is pretty random (and yes, I'm using that as my excuse for everything as long as I can)!

Yay for sisters!

I have the best sisters. The older I get the more convinced of this I am. They are very different people, but it's great because I get the best of all worlds with them. We share everything. When Justin and I first got married he was a little weirded out by how 'freakishly close' my sisters (and mom) and I were. He's used to it by now though - I don't think anything about our relationship could phase him at this point. The point is, my sisters are great and I couldn't imagine my life without them.

Last week I got a special treat. My sister, Ashley, came to visit. It was a completely last minute trip. She took some time off of work to run a half marathon and ended up getting more time than she knew what to do with. With no hesitation she booked a trip to Vermont to see me! I can't tell you how happy this made me. First of all, it has been almost a year since I last saw her. Second, this winter has dragged by and I had nothing to break up all the monotony. I wanted to cry when I went to pick her up at the airport! (And I DEFINITELY cried when we dropped her off!)

We didn't do too much while she was in town this time. We did some shopping and ate out a few times but we mostly just sat around my house talking and laughing. (She also helped me paint the nursery - but I will post about that a different time.) I didn't take too many pictures of her time with us, but that's because we were having such a good time that I honestly didn't think to get the camera out. However, here are the ones I did take:

I had to put this one in here. I didn't realize that she was going to be making a goofy face or else I would have made one too but her face in this cracks me up! It's a really good indicator of her personality - she's crazy funny!
I needed to throw this one in after using that last one. She's so pretty (and she looks even prettier next to the 'Incredible Bloated Lady')! Oh yeah, Clayton took this picture (and the one above). He's turning into such a good photographer!
The boys absolutely loved having her here. She was so good about dropping whatever she was doing and playing whatever they wanted. She definitely spoiled them. I think Clayton was a little disappointed when we came home from dropping her off at the airport and he realized he was stuck with just boring old mom again!
Thanks for coming to visit Ashley! I love you and am so happy that we got to have you with us - even if it was only for a short time! I can't wait to see you again in May!

For my own amusement...

Clayton was invited to a birthday party for a little girl out here. The party was themed and he had to go dressed like a prince. Now, we don't really do 'dress-up' in our house so we didn't have anything for Clayton to wear. Justin and I were discussing this dilemma after Clayton received the invitation. We were serious for about thirty seconds before we realized, "Hey, why did we have kids if we can't use them for our own amusement?". We then started discussing all the ways we could dress Clayton up as a non-traditional prince.

My favorite idea by far was to dress him up as the "Fresh Prince". This idea was shot down however when we realized that it would probably be impossible to find parachute pants in a 4T in time for the party (although I'm totally staying on the lookout - what an awesome Halloween idea). Sad. We ended up mixing traditional with non-traditional and here's the final result:

We made a crown (very traditional), used the hoodie as his chainmail (I'm not sure if that's the right spelling for that), and I made him some armor (although it does kind of look like a 6 pack - either way, it works). He looks like a very good (and slightly crazy) prince.
But this is the best part:
His coat of arms!!! Every good prince needs a symbol (hee hee)! Justin and I were laughing so hard. (**For those who are saying, why did they think this was so funny, I don't get it - this is the symbol that the artist Prince used when he decided that he didn't actually need a name.) Yes it's corny and cheesy, but it works and it totally made my day! It's times like these when I think, 'Ah, yes, this is why we had kids. For our own personal fun and amusement'. I think I'm going to be smiling about this for a while.

It had to be done...

So, not too long ago I posted about Noah's new hairdo. His hair was getting so long. Justin and I both liked it and wanted to just keep letting it grow. However, we had been trying and trying to find hairstyles for him that would showcase his gorgeous waves and curles and we kept coming up empty. Whenever we thought we had found a good style, it would only work once. If there were days that I didn't fix it (and even on a lot of the days that I did) Noah just looked like a homeless kid that nobody loved. I was getting frustrated with the looks I was getting from people whenever I was out with the boys. Looks that clearly said, 'I see you like the older kid much more than the younger one'.

Well, after church today I had had it!! I took my time fixing his hair today (which isn't easy with a two year old) but by the time we had gotten to church, he just looked homely again! AAAURGH! Justin and I decided that immediate action was necessary. So, after dinner tonight (and with a heavy heart) I cut Noah's hair. I should have taken a 'before' picture, but I didn't. This is basically what he looked like before (just picture it a little longer and a little wilder - toward the end I couldn't keep it flat to save my life):

I set up the movie Cars in the bathroom, stripped him down and went to town. He was surprisingly well behaved during the cut (I attribute that to McQueen). Watching all that gorgeous hair fall to the floor made me a little sad - even though I know it needed to be done. I ended up cutting off at LEAST an inch (no joke, this kid's hair was crazy long). After I was all done, I looked down and couldn't believe all the hair I'd cut off!
However, as much as it pained me and Justin (I was surprised at how much he liked Noah's long hair, he was the biggest advocate for keeping it long) I like how it turned out. It looks much better, will be MUCH more manageable, and Noah doesn't look neglected anymore! I know my sisters are going to be disappointed with the decision to cut, but you can go ahead and judge for yourself:



I do feel slightly relieved to have this done. I've known for a couple of weeks that it needed to happen, I just kept putting it off. Looking at it now though, I must admit that I do love it. Besides, with a face like his, he can pull off just about any cut and make it look adorable (although, maybe in the future I shouldn't let it get quite so long)!

Demon Robots? Not in our house!!!

For Christmas we got the movie Wall-E and ever since we watched it Noah has become obsessed with Robots. He thinks that robots are everywhere (the phone, the washing machine, the dryer, etc.). Now, when you think of the robots in the movie Wall-E you think of cute, nice, friendly robots who talk funny and help the humans get back to Earth. Apparently Noah has come away from that movie with a different idea about robots. He thinks that they are demons who must be destroyed!

In the back part of our basement (the unfinished part) there is a large, old oil drum. It is empty now and we could have it removed, but it doesn't really get in our way and neither Justin or I want to pay to have it removed. So it just sits there - large and empty - in a dark corner of the basement. This oil drum, apparently, is the biggest robot threat in our house! Our washer and dryer are in the back of the basement relatively close to the oil drum and every time I go to change the laundry, Noah goes on the attack! He runs at the oil drum full speed screaming, "Hit! Kick! Hit! Kick!" (As he is yelling these things, he is actually hitting and kicking the oil drum with as much force as his little two year old body can manage.)

The first time he did this, I laughed at him and told him to stop. He looked at me with a very serious expression on his face (a look that says, 'Mom, what are you? Some kind of moron?') and said, "Robot Mom. Robot. Hit and kick." He then went back to beating up the robot. Once the robot had been beaten into submission, he proceeded to attack my washing machine. I had to stop him from attacking that particular robot, but he still glares at the washer and dryer when I do the laundry.

So Noah continues to beat up on the oil drum whenever I do laundry (it's the only robot I will let him attack) and I continue to laugh at him. The moral of this story is: DEMON ROBOTS BEWARE - if you come to my house, Noah WILL get you!!!!

Here is Noah attacking the oil drum:
Because I had the camera out, Clayton decided to get in on the action too.

I didn't get a really good shot that demonstrates what I am talking about, so you'll have to use your imagination. However, if you ever come to visit us, all you have to do is ask Noah, "What do we do with Robots?" and he will respond with his most vicious, "Hit! Kick! Hit! Kick!".

Finally, this is for Anisha. She has been asking for a while now to see what I look like this time around. The answer...HUGE! Don't expect too many of these types of shots to appear. Maybe I'll post one more around 40 weeks (we'll have to see what the bloating situation is like).